10 Must-Have Apps For Traveling to China



China is a fascinating and special place for many foreign travelers. It has exotic Chinese culture, bizarre foods, unique customs and many interesting people to meet. There are so many mysterious things to explore there. However you may be daunted by something such as language barrier and China’s web censorship, which limit your ability to obtain information through Internet. To tackle these challenges we made a list of essential mobile apps for china travel and hope they will make your China trip much easier. This list includes some very useful apps including language translation, giving directions, taxis, and best VPN to unlock websites.




1
Express VPN
Virtual Private Networks, or VPN for short, is the most important app that you should use when travel to China (No need to use VPN if you travel to Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan). In Mainland China many world famous sites, e.g., Google, Youtube, Gmail, and social media platforms, e.g., Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are all blocked. Since you may have to use any of these apps as you main way of keeping in touch with friends and family. In order to access these services either for sharing your experience or avoiding any worry or confusion of your friends and family, you need have a reliable VPN service to unlock these blocked services. I recommend ExperssVPN in mainland China. It is the best and fastest VPN that keeps working well in China in recent years. Besides EexpressVPN is the only VPN provider whose official website is unblocked in China. As for the price it is not the cheapest one but its performance, speed, easy-to-use mobile app (available on iPhone, iPad, and Android) and good customer support make it your best choice when travelling to China.




2
Pleco
Pleco is an awesome Chinese-English translation app that helps you crack the language barrier in China. You can “draw” Chinese character on screen and it will immediately look up the words accurately (This feature is free for Android users but costs some money for iOS users). One of this app’s cool features is its OCR (optical character recognition) function. You can use your camera to scan characters like a menu. it will soon identify these characters and translate them into English. Pleco also supports text-to-audio function and you can imitate the pronunciation and intonation to speak to a native Chinese people to see if he/she can understand it. That will be an interesting thing to do in China.




3
Google Maps or Gaode Maps
Google Map is the best choice if you travel to China. It is completely available in both English and Chinese and can navigate exactly to the place you are looking for. But google-powered service is often disturbed and blocked by “Great FireWall of China.” In most situations you can not access its map service. So you should consider another awesome free map app named “高德地图”. This is the best mapping app in China with up-to-date database and accurate directions guide. The app is in Chinese only.




4
Uber
Uber’s service has expanded to 21 big cities in China including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu. Its price is less than 40% of a nomal taxi price and drivers are friendlier than taxi drivers. Uber’s operation interface is simple and easy to use and it track driver’s location in real time. Uber has both English version and Chinese version. In big cities like Shanghai it even provides English-speaking drivers to help those who can’t use local taxi apps.




5
China Trains
China has developed train system and many major cities have been liked by fast trains. It just takes several hours to travel from city to city, and more importantly it saves your money than traveling by air. But China’s official train booking system only provides Chinese version interface, so it is a great challenge for foreign tourists to book train tickets. The “China Trains” app is designed to help English speakers to check train plan and book train tickets around the country. When type in cities and traveling date, it will display available train seats in real time and you can send a train booking request to order your train tickets. This app also has a Q&A column which allows users to ask any questions about train travel in China.




6
TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is a must-have app when travel to China. There are millions of real travelers’ reviews and photos which will help you choose the best place to visit. Users can also ask questions about your trip and will get answered very soon. With just several easy clicks, users can locate the the nearby hotels, restaurants, and fun things to do in the city.




7
Kayak
Kayak is a very useful price comparison app which helps you save your bucks. When searching for a flight, hotel or car rental, it will show prices from hundreds of travel sites and help you find the best deal. Kayak also tracks real time flight status and offers airport info. It is avaialbe on Android, iPhone and Windows system.




8
Skype
Skype is a useful app that you can use to stay connected with your family and friends. Skype is not blocked in China and works well at present. Buy some credits, you can make phone calls with extremely cheap prices to most countries around the world.




9
MoWeather
MoWeather is the English version app of China’s most popular FREE weather app “Moji Tianqi 墨迹天气”. It can show real-time weather and air quality for all places in China. It automatically displays the weather conditions in your place including: Humidity, Wind, Air quality index, Pressure, Sunrise, Sunset and more. It also offers 24-hour, 6-day weather forecasts which help you redesign your trip and know what to wear for the following days’ trip.




10
Bing Browser
The NO.1 search engine Google has been blocked in China and if you want to do English search, you have to choose Bing browser instead. If you download it in China, you may see Chinese version, you can switch to English version in its settings or click the option “只显示英语” in the searching results.
 
Key words: Useful APP in China, Travel in China, Life in China 
 
Next Remember !! Don't Overstaying your visa on the Chinese mainland
Back


Twitter HTSIC

评论

发表评论

热门博文

Shanghai | Guide to 10 Best Shanghai Bike Streets

图片
Shanghai’s traffic laws for scooters and bicycles have been updated and changed countless times this year. Restrictions on main roads makes cutting across town a lot more of a hassle, but you get to see some of the most charming streets the city has to offer. Here are 10 of the most beautiful ones. Kangping Lu If you want to get away from Xujiahui, chances are you will scooter through this road. Even on a bright summer’s day you can drive through this street without feeling the heat, especially with the canopy of trees on both ends. It is also the beautiful setting of eatery, Le Petit  Jardin Tianping Lu Tianping Lu is also another quiet street that can give you a quick detour from Xuhui district to north of Yan’an Lu. Along this street you can find  Old Jesse’s  as well as craft cocktail bar  Healer. Old Jesse’s at 41 Tianping Lu Healer, 1877 Huaihao Zhong Lu Wukang Lu One of the major landmarks ...
阅读全文

7 of the best websites to watch Chinese and foreign movies

图片
If you have been wondering ‘how on earth can I learn mandarin and become fluent?’ Most people will tell you that in order to learn Chinese; you need to make Chinese friends. While having real life friends in order to practice Chinese is essential, it’s not all it takes. This is because your Chinese friends will not always be there at all times when you are in the mood to learn Chinese. So what, then, is an alternative way to learn Chinese? My answer is Chinese movies.   Most expats can testify to this. The advantage movies have over classroom learning is that it works on your listening ability. The good thing is that we don’t really need to understand the language to enjoy the movies. The action in the movie can tell us what the actors are saying. Now this may not happen immediately, but with time it will.  To help you on your quest to improve your Chinese proficiency, here are seven websites to watch Chinese and foreign movies. 1. Iqiyi.com   is my fav...
阅读全文

Mandarin Phrases with double meanings

图片
As language evolves, it goes without saying that meaning will alter or even completely change. This is true for all languages and Mandarin is no exception. So, let’s look at a few seemingly innocent phrases and their hidden meanings. 戴绿帽子 dai lu maozi: To wear a green hat This is an unusual concept but nonetheless very interesting. Ever wondered why you get more than the usual weird looks when you wear a green hat? During the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang made it a law for all men working in the prostitution trade to wear green hats. Later on, this green hat was used to identify a man whose wife had been unfaithful and thus, “made him wear a green hat.” This is why you will never see a Chinese person, especially a man, wearing a green hat. It infers that his wife has been unfaithful 吃软饭 chi ruan fan: To eat soft rice Literally this phrase means “to eat soft rice” but has the interpretative meaning of a man who is supported financially by a female. 飞机场 fei ji...
阅读全文

The 5 Stages of Expat Life in China

图片
In China, you meet other expats from all walks of life and stages of their China experience. We've mapped out five of the key stages of expat life in China: 1)    The Study Abroad Student: Bright-eyed 18-year-olds who come to China for the first time, these China dwellers are too temporary to really be considered expats who are usually temporary themselves. However, they dive in deeply, and change their Facebook locations to their new Chinese home city promptly upon arrival, even if they'll only be there for three months. They don't have much money- or they're Saudi princes; there isn't much of an in-between- and what they do have they spend on overweight baggage fees after cramming shampoo and first aid kits into their duffel bags because who knows what China will have. They make best friends with their Chinese tutors (or date them, and it's a big scandal) and live two to a room in a shabby university dorm where everyone smokes in the hallways....
阅读全文

Shanghai | Guide to Bars Near Metro Stations

图片
Shanghai’s metro is officially amazing. It seems like you barely have to walk above ground these days to get where you're going. Being slightly lazy people, we went looking for some of the bars and pubs that are within 500 metres of metro stations, here's what we found. West Nanjing Road 80m: EZ5 Address:  193 North Maoming Road Tel:   021-32200257 Hours:  Daily 8pm-1:30am EZ5 is just outside of exit 12 of West Nanjing road station. It’s a Taiwanese jazz joint, originally established back in 1991. Their Feng Sheng Li venue offers a big stage and lounge for live music and cocktails in a classy, sultry environment. 130m: Goose Island Brewhouse Address:  209 Maoming Bei Lu Tel:  021 6219 0268 Hours:  Daily, 11am-1am If you walk a little further from exit 12, you will find yourself in beer heaven: Goose Island Brewhouse. This place has 2 floors, over 40 beer taps at the exquisite long bar on the first floor, serving over ...
阅读全文